Tag: GTX

Since I’m quite happy with the mac at work. I’m half convinced that I might want one at home. One problem though. The imacs on sale are crap. They’re nice configurations, for 2006. But why the hell would I sink money in a configuration with a maximum of 4GB and a video card that is the 2006 budget model? I don’t want a noisy mac pro. I want a silent iMac. But at the prices they are selling at, I also want specs that are worthy of the current market. My 3 year old AMD more than matches the specs of what Apple is selling as new today.

I looked at the upgrade options. For 150$ I can upgrade from 2 to 4Gb. I know for a fact that these modules sell for around 30Ã¢â€šÂ¬ here in Finland, including 22% taxes. For 250$ I can upgrade the hd to 1TB (from 0.5). 1TB drives are going around 100-120Ã¢â€šÂ¬ here, including taxes. I can upgrade to a 512 Nvidia 8600GS. Gee, do they even sell these at nvidia? These are not upgrade options but an excessive price for what should be the standard, minimum configuration of a 2000Ã¢â€šÂ¬ PC.

The point here is that for this kind of money, I want more upgrade options. I’m not buying a PC that can’t handle memory modules on sale today. 4GB and 8GB modules are commonplace, 16 & 32 GB modules are on the market as well. A decent PC should have 2-4 slots so a maximum of at least 16GB is what I expect today. Given the memory prices, I’d max the memory out too.

1TB drives should be standard in a premium PC at the current prices.

Regarding the video card. Both ATI and NVIDIA are two generations ahead with their chip architecture. A recent card from the 9×00 series should be standard and the upgrade option should be one in the current GTX range. I’d say 512GB is sort of the minimum for acceptable 3D experience right now. Apple ships macbooks with this now.

So, my plan is to wait until Apple upgrades their product line (any month now?). At that moment I will decide that either it is overpriced crap or I will sink good money in a maxed out version of the imac. Basically, the current specs are not worth my money. If I sink 2000+ euro in a PC it needs to significantly out perform my three year old AMD.